RoleplayNovel Chapter 1115 The Earth Dragon
Chapter 1115 The Earth Dragon
A cold, steel fortress.
Nodes 2 and 3 stand on the land relatively behind.
Compared to the fortresses on the front lines, which were repeatedly battered and bruised by the purple waves, it appeared unusually "calm" at this moment.
The layers upon layers of node fortresses ahead act like a fine sieve, cutting and diverting the surging torrent of void. In the end, only a few scattered, insignificant fish managed to slip through the net.
For the garrison inside the fortress, these scattered mutants were more like appetizers, easily dealt with.
What they were truly on edge waiting for was the impending Void Tide, the one that would engulf everything and belong to their zone's turn.
That was the purgatory that they needed to fill with their flesh and blood and their will.
However, the scene inside the fortress at this moment was even more bizarre and tragic than the physical attack.
It was not the flames of an explosion, nor the tearing of metal, but a silent, soul-crushing disaster.
Nearly half of the soldiers collapsed unconscious in various contorted postures, as if struck by an invisible hammer.
Their eyes were tightly closed, their brows were furrowed, their teeth were clenched, and the muscles on their faces twitched grotesquely from extreme pain or fear, while their bodies twitched unconsciously from time to time.
There were no obvious wounds, but the air was thick with a suffocating sense of despair.
On the city wall, the fortress commander, a legendary elven warrior with long, pointed ears, was kneeling in agony.
The runic longsword in his hand was deeply embedded in the alloy plate beneath his feet, which served as his only point of support, barely preventing his body from collapsing completely.
Sweat soaked his forehead and slid down his resolute yet distorted cheeks.
He could clearly "hear"—no, he could "feel"—it.
What lingered in his ears was not the chaotic and disordered mental noise brought by ordinary void creatures, but a more precise, seductive, and depraved whisper that directly targeted the weaknesses of the mind.
This is something that ordinary void creations could not accomplish.
"Apocalypse..."
He forced the word out through clenched teeth, his voice hoarse.
The moment that mental shock struck, his well-trained soldiers fell like waves of wheat.
Fortunately, the soldier status bar that appeared in the commander's view showed that most of them were only in states such as "severe mental pollution", "deep sleep - nightmare" and "wavering will".
Although the health bar fluctuates, there has been no fatal reduction yet.
Under Aegira's data-driven rules, psychological trauma will also be reflected in a decrease in life points, since the collapse of the soul ultimately leads to death.
"...Commander..."
Beside him, his adjutant, a human shield warrior, was also kneeling on the ground, large beads of sweat dripping down his face, his muscles trembling violently as he struggled against the pervasive mental pressure.
"SOS...the signal...has...sent...out...hang in...hold on...just a little longer..."
The commander gritted his teeth, trying to muster the last bit of willpower in his body, wanting to stand up straight and encourage the remaining soldiers with a loud voice.
However, as soon as he gathered his breath, an even stronger mental shock, as if it were about to tear his soul apart, crashed into his mind.
"Ugh—!"
His body suddenly sank, his knees slamming heavily onto the cold metal, accompanied by a violent cough and warm blood gushing from his nose.
My vision was instantly blurred by blood, and my health dropped by a small amount.
That force, like a cold steel needle, repeatedly pierced the core of his mind.
Just a few hundred meters away from the fortress, on top of a massive black rock covered with black cracks, stood the Ape of Destruction.
His massive, rock-like body almost blended into the background, with only his eyes, gleaming with a ghostly purple light and filled with inhuman rationality and cold curiosity, piercing through the wind and snow, firmly locking onto the suffering beings within the fortress.
Without a doubt, this silent disaster was his "masterpiece".
Choosing node 2 or 3 was a last resort.
Last time, at nodes 1-25, he tried to quietly extract the soul of a fallen soldier in order to peek into the data-driven rules of the Aegira core and the secrets of Kana's authority, but he ran into a brick wall.
The power of the dragon that guards the cycle of life and death far exceeded his expectations.
At the level of pure spiritual will, the void rules he relied on to infiltrate and corrupt appeared so fragile and vulnerable in the face of the opponent's "order," which had merged with the life and death origins of the Aigera world and been strengthened by data-driven rules.
A brief confrontation dealt him an unprecedented blow to his mental core.
The feeling was like trying to move a mountain made of divine steel with rotten wood.
He clearly realized that, on a spiritual level, he could not afford to offend that dragon that controlled life and death.
But the curiosity of the Destroyer Ape, like a maggot clinging to a bone, was not extinguished; instead, it burned even brighter because of its frustration.
Since they couldn't seize the soul, they decided to settle for second best—abducting the living person entirely and extracting information directly from their vibrant brain.
A single person's memory fragments have limited value; what he needs is a complete chain of samples.
From the lowest-ranking soldiers to the mid-level officers, and finally to the commanders of the fortresses.
Only in this way can we piece together a relatively complete picture of the information about this strange world's resistance system.
After careful selection, nodes 2 and 3 became the target:
It is about to face the test of the Void Tide, and the soldiers are under high tension, which is the moment when the mental defenses are most likely to have cracks.
Its location is relatively far back and remote, making it unlikely to attract the immediate attention of core powerhouses.
He could have waited for the Void Lords to arrive before making his move, as the chaos would have made it easier to succeed.
But that won't work.
At that time, his mental interference would likely cause the defenders to distort their movements and make mistakes in coordination, leading to their rapid defeat and being torn apart under the real void attack—and then his "sample" would be completely destroyed.
He also needs these "collaborators" to be alive and provide information.
Therefore, he could only choose to come alone during a lull in the "peace" and complete this "silent" harvest with lightning speed.
Facing a node fortress whose highest combat power was only legendary, he, a level 15 Apocalypse being, should have been able to capture it easily.
The image of the commander coughing up blood in agony inside the fortress foreshadows the harvest being nearing its end.
In just a few more moments, he could break through the final mental defenses and "pack up" the fortress along with all the valuable information within, taking it with him. At this critical juncture, the Ape of Destruction's extremely keen senses jolted.
Without hesitation, he abandoned the rock beneath his feet, and his massive body defied all logic as he instantly launched himself into the air.
Boom!
The massive black rock, weighing several tons, on which he had been standing suddenly bulged and deformed upwards with a muffled thud.
It transformed into an enormous, incomparable rock fist, carrying the power to shatter everything, and smashed fiercely into the sky.
The force of the punch stirred up a cloud of snow dust.
The Ape of Destruction, suspended in mid-air, slammed its arms down.
Om-!
A visible ring of sonic vibrations, mixed with the energy of the dark purple void, suddenly spread out and struck the incoming giant fist precisely.
The hard rock crumbled inch by inch under the vibrations containing the power of rules, turning into countless fragments of stone.
However, instead of scattering and flying everywhere, these pebbles mysteriously hovered in the air, stretched, and transformed into countless sharp stone spikes, as if launched by an invisible crossbow, shooting down on the apes in the air with a shrill sound.
Purple light flashed in the eyes of the Destruction Ape, its body flashing and twisting in the air at incredible angles, its arms waving like the wind, sometimes slapping, sometimes blocking, deflecting and shattering the deadly rain of stones.
But he ultimately couldn't stay airborne for long.
The moment his soles were about to inevitably touch the ground again—
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The ground within dozens of meters of his landing point resembled a boiling swamp.
Sharp rock spikes sprang up wildly like bamboo shoots after a rain, each one gleaming with a metallic gleam.
The surrounding frozen soil and snow surged up as if they were alive, coalescing into huge rock claws and earthen giants that blotted out the sky, with the power to crush everything, closing in on him from all directions.
At this moment, the earth completely transformed into a malice-filled prison.
The Destruction Ape was forced to display astonishing agility and strength, leaping and bounding within a small space, narrowly avoiding fatal piercings and slaps with each landing.
The cage made of rocks and mud constantly squeezed his living space, and every dodge and block consumed the power he was supposed to use for spiritual penetration.
He had no choice but to let out a low growl and forcefully urge the void energy to surround his body, maintaining a suspended posture several meters above the ground, no longer daring to easily touch this "alive" land.
The instant he hovered, the churning mud and rocks below seemed to be parted by an invisible giant hand.
With a deep, earth-shaking roar, a massive, suffocating shadow burst forth from the ground.
Earth Dragon, Kael'thas!
His physique truly lives up to the name "Rock".
From its head to the tip of its tail, which is covered with thick scales and has rock-like protrusions, its body length easily exceeds one hundred meters.
Those outstretched dragon wings resembled two moving cliffs, with a wingspan of nearly eighty meters.
Each flap of the fan whipped up a violent hurricane, scattering the pervasive snow dust.
His entire body was covered in dark brown, metallic scales that looked as if they were forged by the earth itself, with earthy yellow elemental light shimmering between the scales, exuding an indescribable sense of weight and resilience.
Its thick limbs were like giant pillars supporting the heavens and the earth; with each step it took, the earth groaned as if it could not bear the weight.
On his enormous head, a pair of dragon eyes as fiery as lava were fixed on the tiny ape figure in the air, and the breath that came out of his nostrils carried the scorching smell of sulfur and earth.
"Residue devoured by the void!"
Kather's voice was like a massive boulder rolling through a canyon, deep and resonant, carrying undisguised contempt and anger.
"A coward who calmly accepts the destruction of his home planet and grovels before the destroyer! If I were you, I would have been so ashamed that I would have cut my own throat and returned to dust!"
"How could I possibly linger on like you, engaging in such despicable acts of thievery and empty claws!"
The ancient heritage of the astral dragons has given them a profound understanding of the nature of "Apocalypse".
Every taunt from Kaiserkel was like a poisoned spear, piercing with unparalleled precision the deepest wound in the heart of the Destroyer Ape—the eternal, indelible defeat and humiliation.
Upon first meeting him, he was subjected to such a barrage of insults. Even the Destroyer Ape, known for its rationality and forbearance, showed a hint of ferocity on its rock-like face, as if its sore spot had been hit.
He let out a sharp, piercing laugh, retorting sarcastically:
"Cowards? Parasites? Even if we fail, we will fight to the death, shedding our last drop of blood to protect our home planet!"
"You parasites who wander in the cracks of the astral plane, knowing only how to escape destruction and eke out a living, what right do you have to bark and rave about us?!"
His eyes flashed with purple light as he pointed to the solid fortress below. "The reason you didn't flee this sinking world with your tails between your legs like your kind is simply because you're bound here by some kind of shackle!"
"Otherwise, given the cowardly nature of your dragon race, why would there only be a few of you here?"
"A bunch of cowardly parasites who only know how to run for their lives, how dare they mock the warriors who died for their cause? It's utterly ridiculous!"
The Abyss of Ruin is equally knowledgeable, and his counterattack is equally vicious and deadly, pointing directly to some of the less-than-honorable "traditions" of the Astral Dragons throughout their long history.
"Roar--!!!"
The roar, utterly enraged, tore through the cold wind.
Kaiserkel's lava-like dragon eyes were instantly ignited by a violent rage.
Without needing to say anything more, the two equally proud and furious behemoths poured all their anger and power into the ensuing devastating collision.
The earth dragon, Kaiserkel, stomped its four legs on the ground.
Rumble—!
Centered on him, the land within a radius of several kilometers seemed to come alive, becoming an extension of his will.
Hard rocks transformed into raging mudslides, and accumulated snow condensed into ice storms.
The rocks, as if kneaded by an invisible giant hand, instantly transformed into countless enormous projectiles, sharp spikes, heavy grinding wheels, and even roaring stone golems.
The entire world seemed to have transformed into a gigantic crusher of rocks and earth, sweeping towards the suspended Destruction Ape with overwhelming earth power.
The intensity of the battle surged to its peak in an instant, with violent elemental turbulence and physical shockwaves tearing through space and emitting piercing screams.
At the core of this devastating energy storm, the mental pollution that had been eroding Fortresses 2 and 3 like a leech was quickly diluted, disintegrated, and completely disappeared, just like ice and snow exposed to the scorching sun.
Inside the fortress, the commander, who had been struggling to hold on, suddenly felt his mind clear, and the excruciating pain and whispers that had almost torn his soul away abruptly subsided.
He gasped for breath, wiping the blood from his face, and looked in shock at the battlefield outside the fortress, which had been transformed into an elemental inferno.
Although the two level 15 warriors were quite far apart, and the Earth Dragon had deliberately kept its distance, the aftershocks of the battle could still be felt from afar within the fortress.
The soldiers struggled to their feet from the nightmare, staring blankly and fearfully at the two colossal beasts battling in the storm—they had just escaped death, saved by the earth-shaking fury of the rock. (End of Chapter)